Farage fallout

What was irritating, but hardly surprising, is his seamless quantum leap to where the demonstrators are part of the independence campaign. Only in the single-track mind that is Andrew HN Gray can this be acceptable.

However, in all this overblown mayhem that has surrounded Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s visit to Edinburgh, it does need to be remembered that if he is allowed to speak, he will condemn himself out of his own mouth and the people of Scotland will reject him and his party.

Douglas Turner

Derby Street

Edinburgh

For decades, Scotland has been plagued by a minority of anti-English, anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-capitalist cranks who rarely miss an opportunity to demonstrate about something.

In lieu of reasoned arguments, they chant, jeer, swear, yell, wave placards, and denounce anyone disagreeing with them as “racist”, “sexist”, “fascist”, “homophobic”, “Islamophobic”, and so on.

Hardly surprising, then, that Ukip leader Nigel Farage should have been greeted, in Edinburgh, by boorish students bellowing “scum” as many times as they could manage. Such childishness is, after all, what these louts have grown up witnessing at marches and rallies.

KEITH GILMOUR

Netherton Gate

Glasgow

Well, we have just witnessed Alex Salmond’s Socialist Scotland: where words not adoring of independence will not be tolerated; where thugs can demonise, provided they are described as students; where all are welcomed with open arms – as long as they are not from England.

This minority group – that’s what Salmond and his like are – thinks it has the right to subject anyone not of their thinking to all manner of bile. This comes from allowing Salmond to get away with the most monstrous of exaggerations.

If this is the Scotland one could expect from Salmond and his followers, heaven help all who stand in his path. Those who most oft praise democracy in words are likely to be those most oft to deny it in act.

My only hope is that the people of Scotland wake up and vote against this nightmarish vision when the time comes.

STAN HOGARTH

Young Street, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire